MY BROTHER ROY

I've rarely written about my dead brother Roy. Through Art, through one of his artworks, I was able to write something this morning ... partly to give him life in the internet for my family, especially the young ones who never met him.

"Art. It’s not just about the specificity of the object—it’s about how the object can become a threshold into a new experience. Given my brother’s death at a young age, I don’t have and will never have a huge amount of memories with him—whatever I have will never suffice. But, Art—it gives me a new way to interact with him."

Read more about my brother Roy over at North Fork Arts Projects.

FOUND POEM BY MY SON

I've been in the middle of some tortuous moving and storage-ing of various stuff from the house. And in going through various items, I stumbled across an old school notebook of Michael, probably when he was a year or so in the U.S. I consider it a found List Poem entitled "Mom: Eileen Tabios." That 4th item kills me ("she try her best")-- relatedly, I am a person who once baked a cake that was left untouched by middle schoolers (I thought those peeps were supposed to be perpetually ravenous with cast-iron bellies... )

POETRY BUYS ME COZ I BUY POETRY!

I'm on the road on moi way to dropping off Mi Hijo in college!  Yay!

*

Meanwhile, here's an update on moi Recently Bought Poetry List of books by poets or about poets/poetry.  I recommend them all!

First, through Black Radish Books' pre-publication special that's a wonderful deal! I suggest you pick 'em up too!

LUCI: A FORBIDDEN SOTERIOLOGY by j/j hastain

ORPHAN MACHINES by Carrie Hunter

CANT by David James Miller

THE  MESHES by Brittany Billmeyer-Finn

Also recommended are these purchases:

KALI’S BLADE by Michelle Bautista

HOTUS POTUS by Mark Young

UNPROTECTED TEXTS: SELECTED POEMS (1978-2006) by Tom Beckett

THAT WINTER THE WOLF CAME, poems by Juliana Spahr

SECRET WEAPON: SELECTED LATE POEMS by Eugen Jebeleanu, trans. from Romanian by Matthew Zapruder and Radu Ioanid with Intro by Andrei Codrescu

LAST WORDS: THE FINAL JOURNALS OF WILLLIAM S. BURROUGHS

TO BEGIN WHERE I AM: SELECTED ESSAYS by Czeslaw Milosz, Edited by Bogdana Carpentier and Madeline G. Levine

WET LAND by Lucas de Lima

MY TRANQUIL WAR AND OTHER POEMS by Anis Shivani

YOU DA ONE by Jennifer Tamayo

SELECTED POEMS OF SALVADOR ESPRIU, Trans. by Magda Bodin

POSES by Genine Lentine with drawings by Richard Diebenkorn

IN SEARCH OF DUENDE by Federico Garcia Lorca

A SUDDEN SKY: SELECTED POEMS BY ULRIKKA S. GERNES, Trans. and Edited by Patrick Friesen and Per Brask

BURYING THE TYPEWRITER: A MEMOIR by Carmen Bugan

STAGE PRESENCE: CONVERSATIONS WITH FILIPINO AND FILIPINO-AMERICAN PERFORMING ARTISTS edited by Theodore Gonzalves

HERE COMES THE SUN: A JOURNEY TO ADOPTION IN 8 CHAKRAS, memoir by Leza Lowitz

BOOK? CHECK!

My son wrote his first check this weekend.  For the purchase of a book:  The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt.  Yes, soon enough his checks will be for, I don't know, gum underwear CDs et al.  But may he never forget his right start to his checkbook: a book is worth paying for.

"MY DAUGHTER EILEEN" BY MOM

When going through Mom's papers, I discovered an essay she'd written about me in 1998.  From it, I learned things about what were apparently my writerly beginnings and childhood that I was too young to remember.  I thank OUR OWN VOICE for publishing it.  Go HERE to read about how Mom helped raise this baby:

CLICK TO ENLARGE JOY

WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE GOING TO GET?

But of course!  Dear relatives, suffer through having a published poet as a relation -- whether or not you want it, you get the SUN for Christmas!!

A BAGUIO CITY MEMORY

I've been unpacking some boxes.  So I stumbled across this old framed photo that Mom must have had nearly all of my life -- I estimate I'm about two years old.  I know the venue was Baguio City.  Anyway, I guess Mom had a foretelling about me even then, given the nature of the frame...

WITH TEARS, I JOYFULLY SHARE...

There I was by the roadside postal box weeping. I was less than fetching. But I didn't care!!!! Because I was crying over (drum roll for historic moment): Michael's newly-arrived and first (!) college acceptance letter. Can't share details as it's early in the process, but I post the appropriate slice from said acceptance letter below ... (I think he may be among the first ten in his class to get a college acceptance letter). You guide the children (hence the tie-tying lesson--visual metaphor and all that), and then you hope for moments like this:

SON SKETCH(ES)!

I was cleaning the kitchen dining room and stumbled across a palm tree doodle by Michael.  Does he even know how clever it is?!  Dali-esque...

Here's my son's new 2014 Soccer Portrait, by the way...

So proud of him!

EILEEN WITH GREEK GODS

From Athena's first day: encounters with the family, Achilles, the dog godmother Mollie, the vet David who wanted to take her home, and the son who's too busy to do puppy training but insists Athena is his dog.  Next?  The cats....!!!

ATHENA'S BABY PHOTOS

I'm lagging on developing my poetry career (wink) because of recent dog developments.   But I will be getting back to you on certain projects (e.g. Poets on Mortification).  I can't say I feel bad -- I've got BABY PHOTOS!!!!  And Athena arrives tomorrow!

Click to enlarge photos for unbearable cuteness!

Athena on right

Mom and pups

Fourth from Left, Front Row

A

Athena on right

Refresher courses...

WELCOME, ATHENA!

With a full heart, may I introduce Baby Athena. Her full name, as chosen by Michael, is "Flora Athena" -- as Michael explains, after the Roman goddess of flowers and spring because she's gorgeous and the Greek goddess of wisdom and heroic endeavor because she's all that. Gabriela, named after the Philippines' anti-colonial first woman general, would have approved. With no further ado, here is Athena, 4 mos. old -- welcome home, Baby:

GABRIELA TABIOS POLLOCK: R.I.P.

With grief, I interrupt our regular programming to share the devastating news that our family dog Gabriela died unexpectedly this morning from a massive heart attack.  There was no foretelling.  She was healthy, happy and at the time she passed was just finished playing happily with our other dog Achilles.  During their play, she suddenly just dropped to the floor.  We tried to resuscitate her even as we rushed her to the vet's.  Please share in some of our happy memories of Gabriela, from her first day in our family when she promptly engaged Achilles in a game of tug-o-war to what had been her present-day beauty:

(she always let Achilles drive)

THE FAMILY LIBRARY

Started a new blog to deconstruct the family library for love letters to our son.  Not sure he'll appreciate it yet, since the concept begins, "Dear Son, We are spending your inheritance on books.  We are at about 7,000 volumes now ..."  But it amuses his parents...

Of course, there are hidden conceptual layers -- like, we need a way to keep track of the books mushrooming throughout the house.  Like the hubby doesn't know what I acquire and vice versa.  Like, I want to continue teaching the value of books to our son.  Et al.  To wit:

THE CHATELAINE'S FAMILY LIBRARY

I'm just a frustrated librarian ...

MY ADVENTURES IN THE KITCHEN

Yes, the word "kitchen" is not usually associated with Moi.  Anyway, I've been trying, somewhat, to clear up my e-files and stumbled across these photos of a present once given me by stellar poet Sandy Mcintosh and his lovely wife Barbara.  It's a set of five kitchen towels -- presumably, if I draped them in line cross the oven bar where I hang kitchen towels, they would spell out my poem "Wind Falls" in the chained hay(na)ku form.  What a lovely birthday present that was from Sandy, also a poet-chef.

The poem is also from one of my Marsh Hawk Press books, either THIS or THIS.  I can't recall at the moment so feel free to look it up yourself (insert Smiley).  

So relatedly, last week, my son was hungry and asked, "Mom, can you buy me something please?"  A reference, no doubt, to our local supermarket which has a fine deli.  Now, most children might phrase that request as "Mom, can you cook me something?" or "Mom, can you make me something?"  My son, though, has figured out that I rarely cook and thus asked the question appropriately.  While I appreciated his insight, I was struck a bit by it (is that maternal guilt?  Off with ye!) ... and thought yesterday that I should actually COOK something.  So at the risk of giving him a heart attack, I cooked him lunch.  Here's what I made!

Yes, let's all pause for a bit to appreciate its loveliness.  Oh, you would like the recipe?!  Well of course I'll share!  What am I but not Ms. Generosity when it comes to sharing knowledge?!  Recipe: Open two cans of Light Progresso chicken-based soups -- "Light" because I am also a health-conscious chef.  I used Chicken Noodle and Chicken Rice.  Then, just about two minutes before they would finish heating up, I put in a package of frozen won ton.  Heat, Stir, and Serve with Much Love!

My son's reaction?  "Yum!"  SCO....O......O.....ORE!!!!

And if my recipe doesn't impress you, let me tell you what I told my son, "Feel free to complain when you notice I don't cook up three books a year anymore..."

P.S.  I just belatedly realized: I guess that Sandy was funning me when he chose to give me kitchen towels...

...though he is poet enough to also give me Red Roses ... Thank you, Sandy.

SPOTLIT LIKE A DEER BY NAISSANCE!

Apparently (says my publisher), I strike your mind's eye like an oil-filled kaleidoscope.  Which is to say, my chap ROMAN HOLIDAY is this week's Naissance Spotlight -- i.e. will go to you free with any purchase of any other Naissance chap.  Details HERE.

A tiny reproduction of the chap cover; if you get it in person, you'll see a lovely "Still Life" drawing on the cover by my son Michael!

MOM SINGS THE LIGHT

At times, I receive unexpected reminders of how much my mother, Beatriz Tabios, supported my writings.  Like, today, I was led (while developing a project) to read Fred Muratori’s review of my book THE LIGHT SANG AS IT LEFT YOUR EYES published in the American Book Review.  And there’s this excerpt in it that captures one of the risks I remember taking in putting together that manuscript:

What distinguishes Tabios’s work is the anxiety of contradiction at its core, its concern with formal experimentation, and the depth of its self-awareness. Nowhere is this more obvious than at the very center of the book, where we find, in a piece titled “The Blank Page of Death,” a photograph of Mr. Tabios himself lying in a coffin, a copy of one of his daughter’s books displayed above his chest. The poet writes: 

What is it about the image of someone in a coffin? While taking photos of my father in his coffin, I felt appalled—like I was intruding or that the image should be something left uncaptured so that it resides only in memory. Still, I kept photographing... 

No doubt many readers will be appalled as well, prompting questions of taste that rarely surface in discussions of literature anymore. When does art trespass on human dignity? Should the poetic ego acknowledge any limits? Where does the daughter-self end and the poet-self begin? What on earth was this woman thinking? But Tabios, rigorously candid and determined to represent all dimensions of the experience, anticipates these reactions: “I kept thinking to myself, half laughing and half...appalled, ‘You sick puppy—what are you doing?’”

Yeah.  It was such a risk that, today, I actually don't know whether I would replicate that move (of including in a book a photo of Dad in his coffin).

But at the time I chose to do so, I rationalized the decision as one taken and presented in the context of the larger book which, I hoped, showed my complicated but true love for Dad.  

So, Mom.  Since Dad died in 2006 and the book came out, Mom had a choice among my books of what she’d always share with friends and relatives.  Relatives, mind you.  Our clan.  And Mom? She mostly chose this book, THE LIGHT SANG …  

And I’m just realizing today, upon reading Muratori’s old review, that my decision was okay (I suppose I always wondered about it).  Because if it had been only lousy taste that made me decide to include this photo (note that I'm not replicating it here now on blog), I do believe Mom would not have given away so many copies of that book.  If anyone could judge me on this, it would be Mom--a writer but also wife to Dad.

Thanks Mom. And I miss you.  Here she is, and of course she's reading one of my books

with her sewing kit nearby.  Good old Mom -- she so often repaired more than just my fragile hems.

THEN THE HANGMAN CAME ... AS DID THE JEWISH ANCIENT

Finished proofing 44 Resurrections this weekend—like I said, this project sure moves swiftly!  Meanwhile, some of the couplets and tercets got remixed in John Bloomberg-Rissman’s fabulous global project, “In the House of the Hangman.”  Look for us (we’re the lines beginning with “I forgot”) in No. 1705 over HERE. 

From this weekend, too: Happy Father's Day to all.  For himself, this is what we gave Dad -- which he asked for and is a testament to why it's impossible to choose presents for this Dude (featured with his catty Father's Day card):

Himself says earnestly, "Philo was very important ..." then left for Washington.  Still stuck on the dough, I looked him up and and, yeah, he was very important.  Click on this for more:

Philo used philosophical allegory to attempt to fuse and harmonize Greek philosophy with Jewish philosophy. His method followed the practices of both Jewish exegesis and Stoic philosophy. His allegorical exegesis was important for several Christian Church Fathers, but he has barely any reception history within Judaism. He believed that literal interpretations of the Hebrew Bible would stifle humanity's view and perception of a God too complex and marvelous to be understood in literal human terms. Some scholars hold that his concept of the Logos as God's creative principle influenced early Christology. Other scholars, however, deny direct influence but say both Philo and Early Christianity borrow from a common source.

BEATRIZ TILAN TABIOS (1930-2012)

Without my mother, I would never have known the first book I wrote.

I miss Mom.

Thank you, Mom, for all of your mother’s days. 

Mom reads The Thorn Rosary...